Comic Book Journalists Beyond Clark Kent It’S a Different Era of Anti-Heroes and Realism, but the Reporter Is Still an Effective Device, Comics Insiders Say
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138 Matty Roth runs into trouble in Brian Wood’s title DMZ #17 (May 2007). Comic Book Journalists Beyond Clark Kent It’s a different era of anti-heroes and realism, but the reporter is still an effective device, comics insiders say. Bill Knight Professor of Journalism Department of English and Journalism Western Illinois University [email protected] The public respects journalists and holds “the press” in low esteem, according to several surveys – much like Congress’ approval ratings that are low collectively while individual incumbents usually are re-elected. Americans seem dissatisfied with institutions but appreciative of people they know who happen to make up those institutions. A We Media/Zogby Interactive poll released on February 29, 2008, showed that 70% of Americans believe journalism to be important to their communities, but 64% are dissatisfied with its quality. In popular culture, journalists are often featured in novels, films, and other forms of entertainment, but one of pop culture’s most enduring uses of the journalist is in comic books. 139 However, comics’ often shallow journalist characters – embodied by the milquetoast version of Clark Kent – recently have evolved into more full-bodied roles: weak or vain, blustery or cynical, realistic or at least somewhat more credible for twenty-first century audiences. In the last few years, running characters or situations that expand the role of journalists in comic books range from DMZ’s Matty Roth and Transmetropolitan’s Spider Jerusalem to Phantom Jack’s Jack Baxter, Deadline’s Kat Farrell, and Front Line’s Ben Urich and Sally Floyd. This year is the seventy-first anniversary of the publication of Action Comics No. 1 with Superman on the cover, and the seventy-sixth anniversary of the very first comic book, Eastern Color Printing’s Funnies On Parade, a free promotional booklet of original works featuring such characters as Mutt and Jeff, and Joe Palooka. “This definitely is a time when comics … have found a lot more general acceptance,” said American University literature professor Michael Wenthe in December 2007. “There’s been an explosion of really good material in the last 10 years.” A comic book, of course, is a magazine collection of comic strips made up of visual images and text systematically placed as to tell a story, usually with narrative structure and recurring characters. The late, great comic creator and industry icon Will Eisner (The Spirit) defined comics as “sequential art … a distinct discipline, an art and literary form that deals with the arrangement of … images and words to narrate a story. The reader is required to exercise both visual and verbal interpretive skills. The regimens of art and literature become superimposed.” With limited space and time, comics benefit most from familiar characters, and one of the most enduring has been the journalist. The appearance of journalists in comic books may begin with Clark Kent, Lois Lane, Jimmy Olson, Perry White, and others from DC Comics, but comic-strip heroine Brenda Starr came out in 1940, along with radio journalist Billy Batson, the adolescent dual identity of Captain Marvel, followed by other series in the 1940s and 1950s. In the 1960s, Marvel Comics’ Peter (Spider-Man) Parker and boss J. Jonah Jameson started a trend toward more realistic characters and settings for a specialized, increasingly adult market; in the last 10 years, standout journalist characters have become prevalent. The depiction of journalists in comics is not as negative as in film and TV, according to Katherine Ann (Beck) Foss in her 2004 University of Minnesota master’s thesis “It’s A Bird, It’s A Plane, It’s A Journalist.” Indeed, in cinema there are more unethical or corrupt journalists than decent, upright reporters. Still, what if Superman creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster had not made the often-humiliating disguise of Clark Kent a reporter but a carpenter, physician, or traveling salesman? Would subsequent creators have seen those as possibilities, or are journalists’ flexibility and ties to action so suitable that they can’t be passed up? Bill Rosemann, an editor at Marvel Comics and creator of Deadline, a short series featuring feisty reporter Kat Farrell, said, “I’m sure creators would eventually choose the reporter job for their characters. The position provides natural access to potentially action- packed and dramatic plot developments. But everyone salutes Siegel and Shuster for showing how it’s done.” Catwoman writer Will Pfeifer, a working reporter at the Rockford [Ill.] Register Star, said, “A reporter is tough to top as a secret identity – not exactly blue collar, but hardworking nonetheless, down there in the trenches, trying to get the story. The access to breaking news … the newsroom has always been a fun environment to set stories, full of colorful characters and fast-paced dialogue. Though, I admit, as someone who’s spent most of the last 20 years in a 140 newsroom, I never thought the Superman stories ever really captured the oddball spirit of the place. “My only question is,” Pfeifer added, “since he was, more often than not, the story, when the heck did Clark Kent ever interview sources or actually sit down and write his copy?” Another journalist, who covers comics for Wizard magazine, said Siegel’s choice set the right path. “I’d hate to think what superhero secret identities would have followed if Siegel and Shuster had decided to make Clark Kent a ‘mild-mannered ice cream truck driver’,” said Chris Ward, a former writer and editor at Wizard who still freelances for it. “Deciding to make him a journalist is both incredibly practical in gathering information to fight crime, and a perfect visual cover. After all, can anyone look at one real-life journalist and easily peg them as a Superman? I think Clark Kent paved the way for guys like Spider-Man, who could stay out all day ‘taking pictures’ without anyone questioning why he’s never at his desk. Genius.” A third journalist – who’s also a comics creator (of the recent Phantom Jack series) and the inspiration for fictional character Ben Urich as written by Brian Michael Bendis – said his profession is perfect for comics’ use. “Journalists were the closest thing to first responders, next to cops and firemen,” said Mike San Giacomo, who works at the Cleveland Plain Dealer and teaches a course on comics at Case Western Reserve University. “A reporter can disappear for an hour pretty easily, especially compared to a doctor with a roomful of patients. I suppose a writer could make any profession work, but a reporter seems to fit the bill nicely. The other ideal job is no job at all, hence the number of millionaire playboys that put on tights,” San Giacomo observed. DC writer Mark Waid (The Flash, Superman: Birthright) agreed. “It’s just too good,” Waid said. “Carpenters, as a general rule when it comes to falling bridges or super- villain attacks on midtown, are lousy first- responders.” Award-winning comic painter Alex Ross, who has collaborated with Waid, noted that there’s more than accessibility and freedom. “The reporter is somewhat the conscience of the people, being concerned and bringing attention to things,” said Ross, who’s A title panel from Lois Lane #29 (November 1961). 141 done Astro City, Kingdom Come and more, and even used a journalist character, Phil Sheldon, in his graphic novel Marvels. “Cops are authority figures tied to judgment and resolution of some sort – we don’t expect them to be concerned, really. So a reporter can bridge the gap between people and authority.” Clark Kent isn’t just a journalist, of course. Siegel and Shuster used the secret identity concept introduced by Baroness Emmuska Orczy in the 1903 play The Scarlet Pimpernel (with foppish Englishman Percy Blakeney really a dashing adventurer) and also found in Johnston McCulley’s 1919 short story “The Curse of Capistrano” with the hero Zorro (Don Diego). Later in 1930, pulp publisher Street & Smith’s radio figure The Shadow hid behind his identity as playboy Lamont Cranston. Siegel reviewed Child of the Revolution, Orczy’s novelization of The Scarlet Pimpernel, for his high school newspaper, and enjoyed the silent film Mark of Zorro starring Douglas Fairbanks. “As a high school student, I thought that some day I might become a reporter,” Siegel said years later, “and I had crushes on several attractive girls who either didn’t know I existed or didn’t care I existed … The concept came to me that Superman could have a dual identity, and in one of his identities he could be meek and mild – as I was – and wear glasses the way I do,” he continued. “The heroine, who I figured would be a girl reporter, would think he was a worm, yet she would be crazy about this Superman character.” In some ways reaffirming the human side of power – heroes can prevail despite apparent weakness or questionable backgrounds, etc. – the secret identity device helps create tension, conflict, and sometimes even a subplot. It supposedly protects heroes’ friends and families but also permits surveillance and quiet operations. Comics’ secret identity concept is a modern version of folklore’s or myths’ heroes: sometimes abandoned or sometimes just not what they seem – bullied but capable of great power. But even timid-acting Clark Kent wasn’t embarrassing all of the time. “Newspaper reporting was the first career I knew about,” said Los Angeles journalist Rip Rense, in an interview with Tom Mangan at sevenquestions.com in 2002. “All newspaper people are Superman, in a way. Being a reporter was like having a secret identity. It impresses the hell out of people, and inspires a little fear.